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These Truths: A History of the United States Paperback – Illustrated, October 1, 2019
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“Nothing short of a masterpiece.” ―NPR Books
A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year
In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation.
Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself―a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence―at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas―“these truths,” Jefferson called them―political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise?
These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,” Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.
70 illustrations- Print length960 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
- Publication dateOctober 1, 2019
- Dimensions6.1 x 1.7 x 9.2 inches
- ISBN-100393357422
- ISBN-13978-0393357424
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Praise for Jill Lepore's These Truths
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Review
― Bill Gates
"It isn’t until you start reading it that you realize how much we need a book like this one at this particular moment.… Brilliant."
― Andrew Sullivan, New York Times Book Review
"[These Truths] captures the fullness of the past, where hope rises out of despair, renewal out of destruction, and forward momentum out of setbacks."
― Jack E. Davis, Chicago Tribune
"It is the story of a nation, multiracial at its founding, and those who sought to find ways to realize ‘these truths.’"
― John S. Gardner, Guardian
"This sweeping, sobering account of the American past is a story not of relentless progress but of conflict and contradiction, with crosscurrents of reason and faith, black and white, immigrant and native, industry and agriculture rippling through a narrative that is far from completion."
― New York Times Book Review
"[Lepore’s] one-volume history is elegant, readable, sobering; it extends a steadying hand when a breakneck news cycle lurches from one event to another, confounding minds and churning stomachs."
― Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
"Those devoted to an honest reckoning with America’s past have their work cut out for them. Lepore’s book is a good place to start."
― H. W. Brands, Washington Post
"Sweeping and propulsive."
― Boris Kachka, Vulture
"In her epic new work, Jill Lepore helps us learn from whence we came."
― Natalie Beach, O, Oprah Magazine
"Gripping, moving, and beautifully written."
― Evan Thomas, Boston Globe
"A splendid rendering―filled with triumph, tragedy, and hope―that will please Lepore’s readers immensely and win her many new ones."
― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; Revised edition (October 1, 2019)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 960 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0393357422
- ISBN-13 : 978-0393357424
- Item Weight : 2.11 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.1 x 1.7 x 9.2 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #52,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #394 in U.S. State & Local History
- #1,046 in World History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale in 1995. Her first book, "The Name of War," won the Bancroft Prize; her 2005 book, "New York Burning," was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2008 she published "Blindspot," a mock eighteenth-century novel, jointly written with Jane Kamensky. Lepore's most recent book, "The Whites of Their Eyes," is a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.
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Top reviews from the United States
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Lepore does not mask her politics. She writes with assurance about the tortured history of American racism and sexism without victimizing or sanctifying African Americans or women. Her final chapters reflect a merciless critic of modern NRA/pro-choice religious conservatism and a pen equally dismissive identity liberalism. She is utterly unsparing of her postmodern structuralist colleagues in the academy. She portrays Bill Clintons as a spoiled buffoon and Hillary as smart but politically clueless.
Lepore weaves several themes throughout. America was born to struggle with "These Truths" as described in the opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence. What does "created equal" mean? What are our "inalienable rights"? How can we form a government that reflects "the consent of the governed"? These Truths are, at best, a work in progress -- but the work is noble and worthwhile. She writes as well of the history of single-volume histories of the United States -- acknowledging the shoulders on which her massive contribution stands. She tells the stories of immigrants, native peoples, slaves, and women not only from their perspective but from the perspective of those privileged to rule.
Order this book like you would order a fine meal. Savor each bite and treasure each course not only for the freshness but for the spices and the display. Because when your meal ends some 700 pages later, you will discover that you are not full. If you are like me, you will beg for more.
Final point: I read this in hardback but ordered the Kindle version to enable searches, bookmarks, and notes. I urge Amazon to give a Kindle copy of this or any other book to readers who purchase hardback copies. These are complementary, not rival goods. I am not getting more content, nor is a publisher incurring more cost, when I get the book in both analog and digital formats. There is a place for both, but no reason to charge us twice.
One of the things that stood out to me most about this book was the way it challenged some of my preconceived notions about American history. Lepore does not shy away from tackling controversial topics and presenting multiple perspectives on events, and I found myself constantly learning new things and questioning my own beliefs as I read.
I also have to give a shoutout to my amazing history teacher, Dr. Calder, who recommended this book to me and provided such fantastic guidance and insight while I was reading it. His passion for history and his ability to bring the material to life in the classroom truly made this book an even more enriching experience.
In short, I highly recommend These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore to anyone with an interest in American history. It is a well-written, thought-provoking, and thoroughly enjoyable read. Thank you, Dr. Calder, for introducing me to it!
“These Truths” is directed at the general reader. It presupposes no special prior knowledge of American history. In addition, Lepore is able to describe America in a very objective manner. She can see that the country has emerged from a handful of small colonies to become the world’s pre-eminent superpower. But she is also able to see the flaws of slavery, which were a dreadful stain upon the emerging republic. Indeed, the residual after effects of this truly horrible policy are still washing through the system today.
Along the way, Lepore provides some fascinating snippets of information. Two that struck me were:
1. The population of the Americas at the time of Columbus exceeded that of Europe.
2. The population of Hispaniola when Columbus arrived was about three million. Fifty years later had seen the population collapse to a mere five hundred.
I was also taken by Lepore’s description at the end of the book of the American experiment in general:
“A nation born in revolution will forever struggle against chaos. A nation founded on universal rights will wrestle against the forces of particularism. A nation that toppled a hierarchy of birth only to erect a hierarchy of wealth will never know tranquillity. A nation of immigrants cannot close its borders. And a nation born in contradiction, liberty in a land of slavery, sovereignty in a land of conquest, will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history.”
America has been and is a remarkable country that I have had the privilege to visit on numerous occasions. No book in recent times has succeeded as much as “These Truths” in explaining its history.
Top reviews from other countries
She points out the irony of how a nation founded on a constitutional commitment to equality was in fact built on inequality. A constitution tolerating slavery accepted black people were property and would only count as three fifths of a person. From the outset then slavery represented a betrayal of America's founding ideals. Civil War and the abolition of slavery could not just simply dispel racism from American life. The now highly polarised American party system evolved in a context of how debates about how human rights and dignity were to be understood and put into practice. The book ends somewhere around Trump's mid-term. The now President Biden has a walk on part as a hardbitten senator.
Lepore also charts how American newspapers, opinion polls, broadcasting and social media have evolved. In her view, the mass media has grown by firing politics to become evermore combative and partisan. The result has been a compromised US political culture resting on parties shouting the opposition down, rather than on working towards reaching an understanding of a common good.
This book helps us understand the persistence of racial conflict, white supremacy and injustice in the USA up to the present day. It offers an historically informed perspective, directly linking the nation's founding fathers with twentieth century Civil Rights campaigns and with today's Black Lives Matter movement.
It helps readers, especially those like me from the other side of the pond, understand how America's constitution remains a work in progress. The founding truths of the USA - equality, freedom and democracy - will always be fought over.
Whilst this is a lengthy detailed book, it is well worth persisting. I certainly feel reading Lepore's work has helped me to a greater appreciation of the lifeblood and pulse of American culture and politics.